White Dawn
by Dead Heart
Summary: What happens when a rival to Vault Tec stores the majority of the greater Chicago area underground? Follow a group set out to discover a world they literally awoke in.
1. Chapter 1: Seed Awakening

**FALLOUT: WHITE DAWN**

**CHAPTER 1: SEED AWAKENING**

The alarm buzzed loudly in his ear. His hand shout out from underneath the cocoon he made out of his bed sheets to slap it. Connor Duffy got up slowly, careful not to hit his head in his bunk style bed. Groggily, he reached out over the end of his bed and fell out onto the floor, flat on his face. "Damn it," he grumbled into the hardwood floor of his room. He picked himself up and slouched out of the darkened room, navigating his way to the coffee pot by smell alone. He was a rather large young man, six foot four, about two hundred pounds even, all muscle with a head of black hair buzzed close to his scalp. He scratched his thin goatee out of habit. Connor poured himself a cupful, one of surely many this morning. He looked around the small kitchen, noticing the absence of his parents and even his mom's shih tzus. That's when he heard a commotion outside. Making his way to the veranda, where the small dogs were currently at, he saw in the street what looked like the whole neighborhood.

"What the fuck is going on?" He had never seen the entire street together like this since the old couple that used to host the block parties passed away.

"You wouldn't believe it if I told you," spoke a familiar voice. "Oh wait, yes you would, especially after what happened up north."

"I so enjoy your scathing tone this early, Erich." His friend from four doors down was seated in a chair on his veranda. Erich Vogl stood at a modest five foot nine and was a packing a bit of a beer gut. His blonde hair was always in a ponytail behind him that touched his belt, paired with a goatee about three inches long. He may not have been built like his friend, but his heavy metal image and bad attitude gave him a reputation during their school years as the guy to not piss off. On the other hand, Connor was the one who tried to mediate everything with everyone, playing all sides of the fence if you will.

"The hell are you talking bout anyway?" Connor asked, sipping his got coffee.

"Everyone nuked each other, that's what."

"What?"

"Mutually assured destruction finally happened. Welcome to post-apocalyptica."

Connor looked up the street one way and then down the other before inspecting the sky. "Then how come we're not dead."

"This." Erich pulled out a couple of papers that had been paper clipped together. "Everyone found these on their doors." He slid them across the glass table. Connor picked it up and started reading. The heading read "Geneva Subterranean Dwellings Inc."

"The fuck?"

"Just read it."

_Greetings! If you are reading this then the world as you knew is over due to massive nuclear bombardment. Since you're reading this, that means you've chosen to utilize the services of Geneva Subterranean Dwellings Incorporated. In association with CERN Laboratories, we have made a subterranean system capable of sustaining the masses for several centuries, a system more advanced than our competitor, Vault Tec._

_Governor Quinn used the state of Illinois's treasury to pay for life systems in parts of DuPage and Cook counties as well as Springfield. Our patented systems were installed underneath whole city blocks, and lowered your very properties several hundred feet below the earth, protected by special blast doors. Your dwellings were lowered in the still of the night after we released an airborne cocktail of tranquilizers and other chemicals to protect your bodies against the cryo freezing process that has preserved you and your fellow neighbors. While in suspended animation (which us here in Switzerland were subjected to as well), robots ranging from the General Atomics Mr. Handy line and our own customized ones have been maintaining your sleep and biometrics as well as the subterranean systems._

Connor finished reading the first page and couldn't believe it. "How… long have we been asleep?"

"We fell asleep October 22, 2077. Today is October 24, 2300."

The bodybuilder started laughing. "Hahaha, oh fantastic. Well this explains the crick in my neck." He flipped thru the rest of the papers and looked at his friend. "Uh, too long; didn't read."

Erich rolled his eyes. "Basically the rest of it goes to say that over the last 223 years, they've been using aeroponics to grow fruits and veggies and food extruders based off the organ ink-jet printer thingies to make us meat. They had the robots put it all into flash freezing to preserve it. With help from the eggheads at CERN, they were able to backup as many movies, television programs and parts of the internet as possible for entertainment purposes. Since the majority of Chicagoland survived, a lot of us can resume our regular jobs and lives."

"And since when did you have either of those?"

"Go fuck yourself."

"Well if Nicky didn't survive then yes, I guess I would have to now would I?" He looked back at the neighbors in heated discussion. "What are they going on about?"

"Really basic post apocalyptic stuff: look for survivors, check in on relatives. Or in my dad's case, head to the building downtown that he's always at and see if his tools are still in his hiding spot."

"I highly doubt that after 200 years."

"Who knows." Erich stood up and stretched. That's when Connor noticed the gun in his belt. It was a large revolver, namely a Smith & Wesson .460 XVR magnum. Affectionately dubbed the "anti-sonofabitch gun", it featured an eight and a half inch barrel with recoil compensator on the end in a polished stainless steel finish. When it came out, it was the second most powerful production revolver behind it's bigger brother, the Smith & Wesson .500 magnum. Despite being labeled as .460 caliber, it was actually a .45 with a longer cylinder, so it could shoot the next powerful round, the .454 Casull, and the more common .45 Long Colt cowboy round, giving versatility.

And Erich made it abundantly clear on the internet that he could hit bowling pins with it at a football field's distance.

"Uhh," Connor pointed at the hand cannon.

"I'm heading downtown with him. Don't know if there are mutants or psychos. Don't matter," he patted the revolver, "I got the elephant killer rounds loaded into this. And!"

"There's always an and."

"Since the world has ended, I can finally put those sears I made into the Tommy, AR15 and Ak47 to make them full auto."

Connor sighed in exasperation at his weapon crazed friend. Then the light bulb went on over his head. "Waitasec-"

"Can you help us? His tool buckets are a bit heavy and we can use the muscle. Please?"

"Fine, but I call the Ak47."

"Done. The AR15's more accurate anyway."

"Let me get dressed."

"My place man."

Connor waved him off as he left the veranda. Erich grabbed his dad and they set off for their house. Duffy shook his head and went inside to get dressed. As he was getting dressed, a knock came at his door.

"I'm decent!"

In walked his dad, James. An older man, evident by the gray in his beard and hair, he was the lead detective for the auto theft brigade for DuPage county. "You're heading into the city?"

"Yep."

"I don't have to tell you to be careful."

"Nope."

James reached into his back pocket. "Take this." It was his snub nosed Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver. Police were generally issued this smaller weapon as a backup.

"Thanks, dad." Connor tucked it into his belt, angling it to be pulled quickly. He pulled on his favorite steel-toed boots last, right as he heard the modified exhaust of his friend's truck.

"Be careful," his mom called from the couch, having finished having her say to the neighbors.

"I will."

Outside sat the idling, black 2078 Dodge Ram Sport. Erich had won it in a contest from the automaker in mid August when they had started to roll out the new 2078 models. He opted for the older petrol engine when they brought him to the factory, as the contest rules allowed him to customize it how he wanted as long as Mopar carried the parts. Sport, all terrain tires, check. Loud exhaust with muffler activation switch, check. Biggest engine the robots at the factory could cram in with room for a supercharger, check. They took the original 5.7 liter Hemi petrol engine out and put in the more powerful Hemi 392.

What did they do with the engine?

Erich took it with and one long week in August was spent installing the 380 horsepower engine into Connor's 2069 Cadillac Hearse. Connor had one hell of a time looking for one that had a gas engine, since the fusion engine cars need you to have a nuclear engineer's degree. He had installed a lift kit with large mud tires onto it to accommodate his height and because it just looked badass as well as heavy duty suspension for it all. In the back he kept a cheap casket that was his personal fridge.

Looking at it as he strapped on an ammo harness for the automatic rifle, he hoped to drive it up and down the landscape once again, tearing up hills and fields.

"Yo! Pay attention man!" Erich shouted.

"Huh, what?"

"Pay attention man," Erich shook his head. "Fire a few rounds into the dirt to make sure the parts I put in work."

"Deal." Connor hit the trigger and let off a burst. "It works." Erich and his father, Bob, did the same with the AR15 and Tommy gun respectively.

"Hard to believe a small chunk of bent steel and a few springs worked," Bob said. Erich's father was just a bit taller than his son, with the same brown eyes. His beard and hair were heavily grayed, a bit more so than Connor's dad, despite being a few years younger. But when you're the one in charge of the most unique cooling system in the country for the most important building in downtown Chicago that's always breaking down, the stress gets to you.

"All right everyone in," Erich announced. As Connor came around the vehicle, he saw something attached to the front.

"Dude, seriously?" On the front of his pickup was not the grille guard he usually had, but plow, angled down the middle to be a veritable cowcatcher. "Why'd you put that thing on?" A few years ago, Bob had come home from work quite agitated from the traffic on the Eisenhower expressway. That Christmas, Erich had spent some time welding together a plow to put on his own pickup truck.

"Think about it," Erich started, "only the richer parts of DuPage and Cook County were put underground by CERN. So there's gonna be quite a few cars left on the road."

"Oh, gothca."

He turned over the ignition; the 850 horsepower engine roared to life before settling into an idling rumble. "You better turn on that exhaust silencer. We don't want to attract any unwanted attention," warned his dad.

"Yeah yeah." Erich flipped the switch and the exhaust quieted. The truck lumbered down the street. Soon they came to their first glimpse of what the nuclear war had wrought. At the end of the block was a park with open fields for football and a large lagoon with a gravel path snaking around it. That lagoon was a dried up pit. All the grass had been burned away, leaving naught but barren soil. The playground where kids used to frolic was bent and twisted in too many ways to be of any use to children now. A few skeletons littered the open field.

"I guess it really did happen," Connor commented. Driving thru Lombard revealed that the houses did survive, as per GSD Inc. and CERN promised. People milled about on the sidewalks and on their properties in a daze. Shops and fast food restaurants were mere skeletons of their former selves; some being reduced to naught but iron or concrete pillars. Speaking of skeletons, those of the night owls and graveyard shift workers were hanging out of their cars, they themselves rusted derelicts. Some of the townsfolk were gathered round cars they recognized as those of a family member who was out late, either dead silent or a few wailing at the long dead sibling, parent or child.

"Punch it," Bob told the driver.

"Don't have to tell me twice." Erich pressed down on the throttle a little more, slowing down only when he got to intersections so he wouldn't crash into any wrecks on the road while cornering. A few times he had to slow down and put the Ram into a lower gear to gain some torque and traction to push a few broken down cars out of the way with the plow.

The roads were cracked heavily providing for a bumpy ride. Once they made it onto the expressway heading east, they found the Eisenhower to be fucked up, as usual. Overpasses had shattered from the nuke that was dropped on Chicago, but luckily they were able to use the on and off ramps.

"Typical, takes a fucking hour to get into the city," Bob complained. "Eisenhower is as fucked as it's gonna get." They passed some long rusted out road construction equipment. "Big surprise, IDOT machines and no crews manning them."

From the highway, Chicago's infamous skyline was absent. Instead, from what they could see, were only the frames, like the hands of colossal steel skeletons reaching towards heaven. Sears Tower, once so proud and majestic as the highest building in the world, now half of what it used to be. A little more crumbled down from it with each passing season.

Soon, they came to passed thru the tunnel that ran underneath the old post office. Someone had been here thru the years, as the rubble that should have littered the cracked road had been pushed aside, some carted off and tossed into the river. Next was Lower Wacker Drive, a former hobo town. The old drums that the homeless used to use were still there, some even showing signs of recent use.

All around them, buildings were only remnants of their former selves: cracked concrete slabs and pillars, exposed iron skeletons, broken glass.

Erich pulled the Ram up to the maintenance entrance to the Thompson Center, the main administration building after city hall. He shut the truck off. All three hopped out and turned off the safeties of their weapons. Bob carefully wedged open a door, seeing only darkness ahead.

_Author's Note: Just a setup, building the setting for my story. Used myself, family, friends and my neighborhood since I'm too lazy to make up characters and locations. _


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2:MY TOOLBELT NOW HAS A FRICKING LASER ON IT**

The maintenance halls were dark and dank, typical of a building in a dead city. Rusted pipes blazed a confusing path overhead, some still dripping liquids from the cooling system or plumbing. Bob led his son and his son's friend thru the halls to the lower levels where he commonly hid to milk some overtime.

"Of course, of all the buildings, this is still mostly intact," Bob grumbled. While Erich's old man made a killing on all the work his company had him do here, he hated the place since a new problem was always popping up.

"How much further, dad?" Erich asked.

"We have to go thru the main lobby to get to the room where I think I left them."

"Wow, movie cliché. And I guess while there, we get swarmed by a horde of radioactive zombies of some other shit," remarked Connor. Erich rolled his eyes.

They came to a rusty door soon enough. "Stairs on the other side lead up to the lobby directly." He tugged on the door but it seemed to be rusted shut.

"Here, let me try," Connor offered. He slung his AK around his back, putting his shoulder into the door. Slowly did it creak open. "Feels like… something's on the other side."

"Well push harder, muscles."

"Ya feel like helping?"

"No."

"Then shut," he strained against the door, finally getting it open wide enough to fit thru. "…up," he huffed. All three soon squeezed thru, finding that somehow, a desk had been propped up against on the door on the stairs. Carefully did they creep up the chipped and cracked concrete stairs. Erich put his ear to the door.

And promptly fell over upon it being opened.

"What the hell?" proclaimed the one who opened the door. "I thought I heard something from down there." Standing above the blonde was a man bedecked in the precursor to the T51b Power Armor deployed in Anchorage, the T45d. On his hip was a N99 10mm pistol while a AER9 laser rifle was firmly in his hands. "How did you get in thru there?"

"I have the key," Bob spoke, slinging the Tommy up on his shoulder.

"Key? For which entrance?"

"The maintenance tunnel off of the parking on Clark right beneath the Loop."

"What? Loop?"

"That's what the elevated train track that goes around this part of the city is called."

"Uh huh." The power armored one checked his Geiger counter readings of them, finding them to have lower than normal background radiation levels. "You better come with me. It would be best if you saw my commander." As he turned, they caught sigh of a design on the shoulder plate: a sword with wings piercing several gears.

Into the main hall they were led. Moving about on patrols throughout the building were similar men and women in the same armor, plus or minus helmets, all with different weapons. Most surprising, walking around where men almost ten feet tall with grayish skin. "What the fuck?"

"Those would be super mutants."

"Too much radiation?" Connor asked.

"And coming into contact with the Forced Evolutionary Virus."

"Bob?" came a call from the floor right above them. Looking up they saw a ghoul staring at the older man.

"What the fuck?"

"And humans who were exposed to too much radiation when the bombs dropped became nearly immortal ghouls," answered the Brotherhood member.

By now the ghoul was on the same floor. "Holy hell Bob, I can't believe your still alive."

"Wait… Gill?" Gill Vasquez was a former co-worker of Bob's at the piper fitter's company they worked with. "What the fuck happened to you?"

"Oh this?" Gill gestured to the decayed flesh on his face. "I had to answer an emergency call at the UIC hospital when the nuke went off over the lake."

"So you've been alive the last 200 something years?"

"I can ask you the same thing."

"Well Gill, tag along, I'm bringing them to Elder Broskov."

"So who are you all?" Erich asked as they walked along. The glass face of he building had been shattered completely, leaving the rooms walls as the protection from the outside. The large, twisted metal sculpture had been tore down and used for scrap. All the mobiles that hung from the ceiling were gone.

"We are the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel. We broke off from the main Brotherhood over some ideal confrontations on how to run things, but our goals are still the same: retrieve any pre-war technology, preserve it, study it, and use it to rebuild society. We're only a small regiment here as some years ago, the main Midwest force moved west to Colorado to stop a horde of rampaging robots and their controller."

"Fun," Connor remarked.

Up several flights of stairs they went, catching curious glances from the other Brotherhood members, but nothing more. Some were fixing armor and weapons, working on old computers or just shooting the breeze. Connor counted at least a dozen super mutants and just as many ghouls.

"How many of the mutants you got working with you?" he asked.

"In Chicago, a few dozen each of ghouls, super mutants and intelligent deathclaws."

"Wait, you mean those bio weapons that the government made before the war are intelligent?" Erich asked.

"Yep, they can speak English rather well. Oh and the name is Brother Zeke."

"You're on the internet too much if you know that," Bob said to his son.

"Oh Zeke, tell your friends: stay away from my truck if they want to live," Erich warned. One of his rules was to never mess with another man's truck.

"I'll be sure to tell them." Zeke rolled his eyes behind his helmet.

On the highest floor that was still stable did they stop going up. Down the hall, they came across a pair of guards flanking a door. "This used to be Blagojevich's office since he didn't want to move downstate. You know, before they busted him for the corrupt bastard he is…was," Bob told them.

The guards let them in as the Elder wasn't busy. Inside, the once large mahogany desk that the impeached governor use to occupy was littered with papers of field reports, inventories, and patrol movements along with a dilapidated computer. Behind said desk was an older man, in his sixties no doubt, a head completely void of hair with eyes peering over reports from behind thick reading glasses. "Yes Brother Zeke?" he asked, not looking up from a report.

"Sir, I found these three emerging from the locked maintenance tunnel leading to Clark Street. Readings show that their rad levels are at absolute zero."

Elder Broskov put down the report and eyed the middle aged man and the two young men. "Vault dwellers? No, you are not wearing the jumpsuits. Where do you come from?"

Bob pulled the pamphlet that was nailed to his door form a pocket. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Some time passed in conversation between the three preserved ones and the Brotherhood elder. He couldn't believe what he had read in the letters and pamphlets nor believe what he was told. Not long after they started their conversation did Knights from outlying patrols come in, speaking of towns rising from the ground. They claimed to see people acting like it was normal and seeing those same pamphlets nailed to doors and in mailboxes.

During their conversation, Elder Broskov sent a knight to retrieve the bucket of tools that they found some time ago for Bob. The plastic buckets that he always carried them in were a little chipped but nothing more. The tools themselves were covered in a slight bit of surface rust, not bad considering how old they were, but he had stashed them in a notoriously dry part of the building. At the end of their conversation, Broskov came to the conclusion that the Brotherhood would help the newly resuscitated populace by setting up guard posts along the edges of the reborn towns. In the back of his head, he was thinking that this would indeed swell their ranks.

Knight Zeke helped to load the tools into the truck. Gill told Bob that he'd strike his camp there at the Thompson Center and try to move back to his home near Cicero. "All right, you three be careful. Get home before it gets too dark because that's when all the crazies and raiders come out that we have yet to get rid of."

"Thanks for the advice," Bob said, zipping up his jacket. It was about 4 in the afternoon and the sun was starting to sink in the late fall sky, painting it a shade of orange closest to it, gradually fading to red then a smoky purple farther out with the clouds.

A red dot showed on Zeke's forehead.

Robert tackled him to the ground as a shot rang out.

"DAD!" Erich shouted after diving behind a dead car. Connor took cover behind a support pillar for the track overhead.

"I'm all right!" he shouted from a crouched position of the truck. Zeke was unharmed and actively scanning the area from where the bullet had come from based on the pockmark in the concrete wall where he was.

"Did you see where the shot came from?" Zeke shouted.

"No!" Erich cautiously peeked up, just barely edging his sight over the door of a Chrysler Fusion. He looked back to the impact of the shot. "Con!"

"Yeah?"

"I need to be decoy!"

"Please tell me you're kidding." He looked to his friend not twenty feet to his left, seeing the dead serious look. "Fine, where?"

"You see that semi trailer in that 7/11?"

"Yeah."

Erich readjusted himself. The barrel of his AR15 just poked past a rotted tire. He fixed his sights on a building down the street. The windows were smashed out on the second floor and he could see only darkness inside; they had a commanding view under the Loop. It would be the place he'd pick.

"GO!"

"You owe me!" Connor ran from the cover. He booked it to the overturned semi-trailer. As he was running, Erich caught the glimpse off the scope of the shooter when he adjusted. Erich pulled the trigger, feeling the rifle barely move.

The only sound asides from his shot was Connor slamming his back into the underside of the rig. "You get him?"

"I think so."

"Brotherhood scum!" Came a shout from around the trailer. Out walked a man decked in power armor that was definitely post war. The helmet was smoothed out, almost like a gas mask with orange lenses. The armor was matte black plates. He was brandishing an M191 Minigun. He spooled up the six barreled weapon, taking aim at the car Erich was behind.

Sadly for him tho, he didn't see the barrel of the AK47 aimed at his temple. Connor pulled the trigger, having a front row seat to the spray of blood, bone, brain and metal as the armor piercing rounds tore thru the man's head at point blank range.

"Anymore?" Bob yelled out. Zeke got up, walking cautiously to the intersection.

"I think we're in the clear," Zeke said. He let his laser rifle hang about his waste. "Are you all right?" he asked Connor.

"Shit man," was all he said as his breathing was slowly returning to normal.

"That's how it is with the first kill," Zeke said, clapping him on the shoulder.

"I wanna see my kill, make sure he ain't playing opossum," Erich said. He marched down the street and entered the building. Inside was nothing but rubble and trash. He wound his way to the stairs. On the second floor he found his first kill. The sniper in question was a woman, slight of build with dirty blonde hair cropped close to her scalp. Her armor was like her boyfriend down below, except slimmer to fit her. The helmet she would have been wearing was on an old foot rest, splattered with blood. The .223 caliber round Erich had shot went in just below her right eye. "Tch." Her rifle of choice was a well maintained Springfield Armory Socom II series M14 semi-automatic rifle. On it was a decent, mid range scope with a laser sight, fully adjustable shoulder stock.

Back in the street, Connor was hefting the minigun. The six barrels were together in pairs. Powering it was a small fusion battery. On a bottom rack was an ammo tin that carried the special 5mm ammo. The man he had killed had a backpack that was just a harness for carrying the spare tins. It was a heavy weapon, one that felt pretty solid in his own hands.

"Enclave soldier. I thought the main east coast Brotherhood had wiped them all out."

"Enclave?" Robert asked.

"The remnants of the pre-war US government hell bent on world domination. Did some pretty wicked shit in their time after the apocalypse."

"Guess you didn't get them all."

Zeke saw Connor checking out the minigun and armor. "That there is Enclave Hellfire armor. This asshole was supposed to have a heavy incinerator, but I guess he preferred that mini you got there."

"I do indeed."

"Well the law of the land in the 24th century: you keep what you kill."


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3: TOY STORE**

"Oh no you don't, you leave that outside mister," Barbara warned her son as he came in, decked in his new outfit hefting his new toy. He hadn't even gotten his foot in the door.

"What if I just leave the ammo outside?" Connor asked his mother.

"No," she said flatly.

"But-"

"No." Now Mrs. Duffy was generally a very kind hearted woman. But when one of her three sons would try to argue…well, let's just say that the three Duffy brothers were convinced that their mom was ex-Spetsnasz. "And what the hell are you wearing?"

"Well according to Knight Zeke," Connor quickly put minigun on the veranda, "Enclave Hellfire armor." His mom and dad looked utterly confused.

"And its covered in blood why?"

Connor pulled off his helmet. "Well…" He soon launched into the details of the little excursion downtown. They were shocked to learned about the man he killed. His father tho, having been a police officer before becoming a detective with the auto theft division, explained to them that he acted in the right way, in defense of himself and others. "Erich nailed a sniper that almost got his dad."

"How did he react?" James asked.

"Indifferent. Only wanted to see his kill." Mr. Duffy knew those types. They were the ones you usually had to watch. "He picked up the sniper's rifle as his, ahem, trophy."

Speaking of Erich, he was down in the basement, breaking down his new toy. "Laser, that's gotta go, only pointed the dumb bitch out to me," he mumbled to himself as he pulled off the laser sight. The rifle stock was black polymer and had withstood the test of time the last 200+ years. He pulled the bolt back and shined his bore light in thru thru breech, seeing only enough baked in powder to warrant that it hadn't been cleaned in at least a week. Same could be said for the bolt. "Flash suppressor looks fine if scuffed. Mid range scope… I'll take it off for now, I like irons better." He found with the rifle a smaller ammo tin containing two dozen twenty round magazines for it. Back when the world was in its final days, Erich had drooled over this rifle at his favorite gun store, never having quite enough.

For Connor tho, all the ammo they had found for his new M191 minigun was on the rack of the guy he had killed. Four tins in total, including the one in the gun. Each tin contained 300 rounds of belted 5mm ammunition. Erich told him to bring it over later so he can look it over. After Con had put on the power armor and loaded up the rack on the back of the suit, he said he hardly felt the weight of it. The Irishman loved the blood-glow tint of the helmet.

Back at the Duffy household, Connor was fiddling with the different features of his helmet. He found the most basic and useful one first: a broad range radio. Currently he was flipping thru the different view types, of which he found the helmet's software to be controlled thru a pad on the wrist, to include standard, a zoom good for at least a few football fields, night and thermal. "Oh this is sweet," he said while in night vision walking to his friend's house. The street lights weren't working so he had a good reason to use them. As soon as he got within sight of the windows of the Vogl house, their three dogs let up a racket. _Good to see the alarm system is still active_, he thought.

"Connor! Just go thru the yard to the basement!" came Bob's call. Connor waved with his free hand. He let himself in past the weathered gate and hardly readable "Warning: Dogs" sign with the penciled in "s". Thanks the audio enhancements his helmet gave him, Connor could still hear the Hemi of the black Ram ticking from it's heat. He had to maneuver the long barrels of the minigun into the narrow space between the basement hatch and Mr. Vogl's red Ram, god forbid if anyone scratched it. He banged on the hatch. A few more lights flickered on in the basement and soon he heard deadbolts being thrown. The door opened inward before the hatch itself rose thanks to Erich pushing and propping it up with a 10 foot long piece of copper pipe.

"Hey man," Erich greeted.

"Yo," his voice crackled thru the helmets radio.

"Ok, I'll be the first to admit, you look terrifying in that." Connor chuckled at the sentiment as he was ushered in. "Watch your head."

"Always do." One thing Connor hated about his buddy's basement was the low ceiling, which sucked with his height. He had to stoop even lower now because of the boots and helmet. He saw the large revolver still tucked in the blonde's belt. "Expecting a fight at the OK Corral are we?" Connor said upon seeing the gun safes wide open and ammunition tins with their lids off.

"In case you didn't notice, the only ones armed asides from the Brotherhood today were you, me and my dad."

Duffy thought about for a second. "Shit, you're right… for once."

"Blow me-anyway, did not see one copper at all downtown. And you and I and everyone else in our group have read the Zombie Survival guide, so you know what happens with the local authorities in times of crisis."

Connor sighed, "In reality they abandon their stations and beats to protect their families. Wonder how Josh is…" Josh was Connor's oldest brother and a police officer for the neighboring town of Elmhurst.

Footsteps were heard on the stairs. "Yo Erich, got any strippers full for the SKS?"

"Do I look like a slave? Do it yourself Steve!" Steve hit the bottom of the steps. He stood a couple inches taller than his older brother and was much more in shape. His light brown hair was cropped about his neck with a swath on the right side dyed bleach blonde. In his ear lobes were one inch gauges while his lips sported small 16 gauge snake bites. On the upper portion of his right bicep was a gothic cross with the insignia of a Unite States Air Force master sergeant-a tribute to their late grandfather.

"Don't have to be such a dick about it, god." Then he noticed Connor. "Holy hell." He looked him up and down. "Gotta be Connor in that tin can."

"Of course it is," he responded.

"Heard that you guys had some fun downtown," Steve said, reaching for the tin of 7.62x39mm ammo. He then pulled out a handful of stripper clips and started threading the rounds on, ten each.

"Loads," replied Connor. He pulled his helmet off. "All right, what we got?" he gestured to his machine gun.

"Military hardware, that's what," Erich started.

"Oh boy, here we go," Steve rolled his eyes as he continued to load clips.

"This is a Dillon M191 minigun chambered for a 5mm proprietary round. No other mini or belt fed weapon in general fires this type of ammo. Military made it that way so the Chinese wouldn't be able to use them extensively. When you put a smaller round into a minigun, it shoots faster but this model was purposefully crippled to have a slower firing rate to conserve ammo."

"So how fast is it?"

"More like how slow. They actually tuned this to be slower than the M16A8's they were using in anchorage."

"So how slow is it?"

"About 500 rounds a minute, so you get _some_ longevity out of those 300 round belts. If this was equipped with the full suite, which that rack would've been a backpack with an ammo chute, I'd say you'd get about triple your current amount of ammo."

"I want it."

Steve laughed. "Just what we need, you with infinite ammo."

"So how big are these rounds?"

"Lets open a spare tin and find out." Connor pulled one off the rack and laid it on the bench. The top had a feed with a round right there.

"That looks like a .308 with the neck cambered down." Erich then inspected the minigun. "Seems the action is here at the bottom, so the bottom barrels are the ones firing, not the top. Makes sense, puts all the weight at the top to keep the recoil down."

"Sweet deal." Connor looked over the rifle his friend had picked up. "What's the deal with that?"

"Springfield Armory Socom II in .308. Standard marksman rifle just in a smaller package and accessory rails all over it. Your basic tacti-cool gun. Scope is a mid range Leopuld, aka, expensive. Laser is shit, only good for one thing."

"What's that?" asked the large one.

Erich walked over to the basement stairs and whistled, "Pandora, Gypsy, Sugar, come here girls!" A thunderous stampede of paws later and the three dogs were in the basement. Pandora was the pack leader, a black border collie and Siberian husky mix. Gypsy was the middle a dog, a very tall beagle thanks to being part Australian shepherd. Sugar was the youngest and the largest, weighing in at just over 80 pounds, a blonde German shepherd and yellow Labrador mix. They immediately starting sniffing Connor up and down, the armor clouding his original scent for them. "GIRLS!" The three mutts eased off a bit. "Now watch." he turned on the laser pointer and shined it on the ground. As soon as he did, all three dogs took notice. He waved it around on the floor and they promptly started chasing it. "And that's the end of that," he shut off the laser and the dogs looked at the floor quizzically, wondering where it had gone. "Mom! Dogs!"

"GIRLS!" his mother shouted from upstairs. The three heeded their master's call and raced back up the stairs.

Erich turned back to his large friend. "Like I said, that's the only use for one these damn things."

"Find that vault door to the underground?" Connor asked.

"Yeah that little cubby hole in front of the steps," Erich gestured in it's direction. Connor took a peak in the hollow that they usually used to stash extra fans or beer. Sure enough, there stood in the wall of the hollow a steel door that would be more at home on a battleship. On the side he noticed the keypad's screen said "Open date: Nov. 1, 2300"

"Same thing in my basement," Connor said.

"So… what do we do now?" asked Steve. His brother sat down on the work stool and thought.

A glint came to his eye.

The next day, a convoy hit the expressway. In the lead was the black Ram, still with it's plow, carrying the Vogl brothers. Following next was Connor's jacked up hearse. Cars of their friends who decided to come along all tailed them. Erich would angle his truck at cars, catching other front or rear bumper after hitting the gas, plowing thru them easier.

"Look at the redneck go," Nicky commented to her boyfriend. "Think he's having fun?" She had died her hair black before the cryo sleep. She was well endowed, her bust seemingly larger after working out with her boyfriend. In her clutches was one of her dad's rifles, a Colt M16 target match with a cheap scope. Her cunning eyes watched the dead forests on either side of West Dundee Road. Strapped to her ankle was a sliding tactical knife that she usually had on her person.

"Must be if he's doing a burnout before ramming this one," Connor said, his hand resting lazily on the gear shifter.

"Does he think we'll find anything there? It's been over 200 years."

"He thinks that some people wouldn't have gotten into the vault."

"All right, if its still sealed, how are we getting in?"

"He brought some nasty ass torch with."

Nicky rolled her eyes. "It better be some industrial thing if he hopes to get thru it."

"Knowing him, more like overkill."

Next in the conga line of cars was a black Chevy Monte Carlo, belonging to Greg Chevallier. A lanky an tall young man at almost seven feet tall, standing even taller than Connor, minus the power armor of course. His grey eyes watched the trucks ahead lazily from behind a mop of straight, brown hair.

"How much longer?" Jamie asked. Jamie Karacas was Greg's girlfriend, standing about 5'8" with long brown hair down to her waist that she typically wore in a bun. Thick glasses sat in front deep brown eyes. She was visiting her boyfriend from college for a day or two when they were all put in the deep freeze.

"Well we just got off the highway-There's the old boat dealer and behind that is…"

A decrepit old sign advertising firearm safety lessons pointed right at GAT Guns. It was a stone block building, built to mimic the Alamo in Texas. A few rust bucket cars sat in the parking lot and the second floor window was smashed. All four vehicles parked in front after Erich pushed the wrecks out of the way. The red front door was hanging on by a single hinge; it's windows still bearing a faded sign saying that all fishing poles were on sale.

The fourth and last vehicle belonged to Brian Lamberty. He stepped out of his pickup truck, revealing to the world the bear of a man he was. Complete with a plaid shirt and a beard of thick brown hair that could make 20th century media sensation Chuck Norris jealous, to complete his lumberjack image all he needed was an axe. Which was what he pulled out from the bed of his pickup. Since the world had been infatuated with a retro fad, Ford saw fit to bring out a limited edition F-150 based on the 1955 F100. His was painted forest green.

Brian his hand thru his shaggy hair. "You really need a haircut," spoke his girlfriend, Leslie Palmer. She was short, full figured, with her brown hair cropped short. "And will u get up?" She said to the last member of their convoy. Dan Criscione leapt out of the bed of the truck unexpectedly quickly for a man wider than her boyfriend. Topping this mountain of tanned flesh was a bushy pad of hair affectionately dubbed the brillo pad. He pumped the Beneli Nova shotgun he had borrowed from Vogl.

"Lets do this." Erich chambered a round in the AK, Steve cocked the SKS, Nicky pulled the charging handle on her M16, Connor hefted his mini, Greg pumped his Remington 870 shotgun, Jamie thumbed the safety off her boyfriend's Baby Eagle and Leslie pulled back the slide on the 9mm Beretta she borrowed from Vogl.

Brian moved the busted door from their way. Inside the lights were dead, of course, the only source from the few windows and the lanterns Jamie and Leslie thought to bring. Connor took point, his helmet granting him unparalleled sight in the darkened shop. In the orange glow, his eyes took it all in: shelves were busted with few fishing supplies left as the gun stuff was in the back of the shop, all sort of vegetation had started growing inside. His helmet picked up the sound of scuttling and he found the source: a cockroach the size of a small dog. "Guess its true about what they say about roaches surviving nuclear war."

A resounding "huh?" rose from his friends. They shined a light at where he pointed.

"Ew, gross!" Jamie hollered. Greg answered that with a shotgun blast, painting the wall the radroach was clinging to with its guts.

"Moving along," he said.

"Greg, Dan, Nicky and Jamie, clear the range," Erich told them. Everyone else upstairs. They moved their separate ways. In the back where they usually kept the surplus ammo, they found none, to which they weren't surprised. The display case that housed all the rental handguns were gone. In the range, the four found that a few of the walls had fallen in, letting in the fall light. Nothing was there except a few skeletons and a floor littered with rusty, spent shell casings.

"Nothing," Nicky said.

Upstairs they fared not better. All the handgun cases were gone and the racks behind the counters were empty, save for a few accessories like aftermarket rails, grips and stocks. "Fuck," Erich spat. Connor wandered over to the archery section, to find that that too had been ransacked as well.

"You find anything up there?" Dan called.

Leslie looked to the others, "Not yet."

"Well we found a bunch of fishing line buried under a shelf."

"Fishing line?" She asked of Erich. He nodded. "Truck!"

"All right." He ran out to toss the boxes of fishing line into Brian's truck.

"Ello? What's this?" Connor came across a few lock boxes in a room off of the archery section. Using the increased strength he had from the power suit, he easily tore the padlocks off. Inside he found a Diamond Archery Iceman FLX compound bow. The box said it had a 70 pound pull. In the lock box was several quivers worth of arrows. "Got something Randy would like over here!"

"Then take it outside!" Erich yelled. He was busy fumbling with a lock to a metal screen mesh door, the type you see on secure storage rooms. "Oh fuck this." He backed up a few paces, took aim and let off a burst at the lock. The rifle rounds tore thru it, causing everyone else to jump in the process.

"What the hell are you doing?" his brother demanded.

"Picking a stubborn lock."

"Smartass." Inside the brothers Vogl found shelves containing a few boxes. These were the last orders GAT guns had received. Upon closer inspection, some wiseass had taken the guns from them and closed them back up. Steve nudged his brother at see what was at the far end. "Dude look."

It was the door off a safe the size of the far wall, designed to swing inward. On it were many scuff marks but when Erich jiggled the handle, he found it to be firmly locked.

"Go tell Connor to bring up my oxygen cutter. NOW!"

"Calm down," his brother said exiting the store room. A minute later, the one in power armor hefted in a tall metal bottle of oxygen along . Steve had brought in the mask, apron, gloves and rods his brother needed. After donning his gear, Erich had Connor hook up the handle's tube to the oxygen. Also brought up was the striker plate now at his foot. After making the connection, Erich threaded a "stinger" into the handle and put the round metal hand shield on it. Everyone was watching him get ready.

"You guys don't want to be watching this," he warned. All but Connor moved away. He found his helmet's auto-dim feature. They lit up once Erich started the cutter. The burning oxygen created a brilliant, tiny sun at the end of the hollow rod. He plunged it into the locking mechanism, the steel boiling instantly.

"Told he'd bring overkill," Nicky stated.

They all waited patiently as the blonde went to work cutting. He would dip in at a few other spots to make sure he had cut thru the locks completely. About ten minutes went by before he proclaimed he was done and shut off the oxygen. He pulled off all his gear and had Brian drag the bottle of out the way. "Careful, the handle is hot."

"Really? I thought it would be ice cold."

"Connor, out yer shoulder into it."

"Why don't you?"

"You're the one wearing fireproofed armor."

"Oh right." Erich got out of the way as he armored behemoth went to work. He popped he handle and the door swung effortlessly. Once the smoke cleared, Erich was grinning.

"My hunch was right. This is where they kept all the class III weapons for other dealers and law enforcement."

Before them was a vault laden with military weapons and ammo.


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER 4: UNDERWORLD**

Erich tapped his foot impatiently, watching the timer on the hatch whilst absentmindedly cycling the cylinder of his revolver. It was set for noon on November first, something that GSD Inc. thought would be more courteous to the people they had preserved. The seconds ticked by rhythmically with his foot until it read noon. A beeping sound went off. A hissing sound was heard as the pressurized door started to open.

"It's open!" he shouted up the stairs. His brother was the first one there, followed shortly by their parents. The hatch swung open, bathing the basement in red light. The family cautiously moved in. Once past the hatch, they found themselves in a room with another security door before them.

"Decontamination phase over," a robotic voice said thru a loudspeaker in the corner. Regular lights flicked on and the door before them opened. A floating eyebot zoomed in.

"Greetings Vogl family!"

"How do you know who we are and what are you?" Bob asked it.

"I was originally Lars Kupa, CERN scientist. I know who you are because I've had the last 200 odd years to learn everyone in the county."

"Wait," Steve said. "You have a name, not a designation like a Mr. Handy?"

"Correct," it bobbed as if nodding. "Three hundred scientists, including myself, had to stay below to monitor everything. AI's that are around too long tend to go into redundancy so we had to stay behind. And I'm sure you are aware, flesh only lasts so long." It spun around and popped a rear hatch, revealing a brain in a glass jar with many wires in it.

"Wow, you musta gotten bored," Erich commented.

"No not really, too much to do monitoring vital signs of all the people and making sure the clankers produce enough goods for the revitalized society to continue. Now I must leave you for now, other families and individuals to meet and greet. There should be a Repconn Eyebot coming up soon to answer your questions." With that, Lars flew off. Soon another hovering robot replaced him.

"I am Unit AE-9183. Please direct any and all inquiries thru me and I will answer to the best that my databanks will allow. Now please follow me to your store rooms." They followed the robot to find themselves atop a catwalk.

All around them were massive support beams, hydraulics and miles of catwalks. Other people were being led around by similar eyebots while the preserved scientists flew around doing all sorts of tasks. Looking up, they saw large blast doors, retracted so that their homes could be topside.

"What store rooms?" Mrs. Vogl, Lynn, asked.

"For the past 223 years, we have had food extruders combined with medical organ replication devices create food supplies according to what we found inside your homes while you were in stasis. Other supplies based on what we found in your homes were also made such as toiletries, cooking oils, limited construction materials. In the case of you, the Vogl family, we found within your garage several drums of gasoline that we used to produce even more of and the ammunition in the calibers of the weapons registered to you as you were found to have the most firearms on this block."

They were quite taken aback by it, but Erich was grinning ear to ear at the ammunition part.

"That food or any of it for that matter can't be any good," Lynn said.

"In fact it is madam. Our freezers had been specially designed to preserve food for 300 years, combined with the proper chemical baths. We will simply thaw out what you need upon request and sanitize it for consumption. Stabilizer's have been added to fuel and ammunition as necessary."

"There has to be other CERN facilities like this," Erich said.

"Indeed there are. On each continent except Antarctica. CERN's own labs served as the Europe branch with other facilities such as this one in Tokyo, Japan; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Sydney, Australia and Johannesburg, South Africa. The intent of Project: Underworld was to preserve as many humans as possible while maintaining cultural diversity." They walked down a few flights of stairs and soon found their personal store room. "Here you are."

Inside, they found grocery style freezers, each marked for the different food in them like poultry, beef or beverages. There had to be several supermarkets worth of food there just for their family. In the back did Bob and Erich find their ammo: there had to hundreds of thousands of rounds of .22LR, .38 Special, .357 Magnum, 9mm, .45ACP, .380ACP, .45 Long Colt, .410 bore shot shells, .454 Casull, .460 Magnum, 12 gauge buckshot, .223, 7.62x39mm, 8mm Mauser, .30-30 Winchester and .30-06, all spread between copper washed, brass washed, full metal jacket, hollow points, jacketed hollow points and even a few of the rifle calibers in armor piercing.

"I've died and gone to heaven," Erich whispered.

"INFINITE MEAT AND PROTEIN POWDER FOR THE WIN!" they heard the bellow from four rooms down.

"Sounds like Connor and his family got to their locker," Steve said.

Indeed the bodybuilder had. And not just one flavor too for his protein shake powder but many others. The fridges held his favorite snacks: deli meat in two pound portions, just like in his fridge back topside. "Hey Unit 1349!" he shouted.

"Yes Mr. Duffy?"

"If say I ever run out, would you be to replace he stock?"

"Yes sir. We would work our processors to get a ready supply to make sure you stay topped off, even now we can turn them back on. All you have to do is ask."

"Sweetness."

"Where's the dog food?" his mom asked.

"Third self, just after the freezers Mrs. Duffy."

"All right good, Molly and the other two need to be fed soon and I just ran out the other day… century I guess."

Another eyebot floated in just then. "Unit 0185 reporting." Attached to it was a tray. "Here are your new cellular phones. As the old networks have long since been destroyed, everyone is now on CERN's own private phone network." Three smart phones sat there; large touch screens with a few buttons near the bottom, the middle one had it's slide out keyboard revealed.

"What no retro turn dial?" Connor asked.

"That fad phase that the American people went thru before the end of the civilized world had no efficient purposes and was only for aesthetic appeal."

"Any restrictions like minutes, texting?"

"Infinite."

Connor let out a low whistle.

"As they are linked to CERN's network, there is a voice operation system installed that allows you to call anyone in the network as long as you know their name. The setup is rather easy and they come with a tutorial."

"Powerful toy," James commented.

His son had a thought just then. "Hey 1349?"

"Yes?"

"I recently acquired some power armor. Would you or any of the other robots be able to work on it?"

"Leave it down near your hatch before you rest for the night and a maintenance droid will bring it back here to work on."

"Deal. Now then…"

The new phone in Erich's pants pocket vibrated, that being the default setting. "Who the fuck is calling me?"

He put it to his ear and was greeted with a "MEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAATTTTT!" He sighed, "Yeah I heard you-"

"MEAT!"

"Ammo!" Erich shut it off. He turned to 9183. "How many rounds of any caliber can your machines pump out in say an eight hour work day?"

"On a single caliber we can probably produce upwards of 8,000 rounds if all the ammunition machines that were assigned to your cache as they no longer have other variations to make like with your current collection."

"Great. Me and my friends just picked up a few new toys. Now is that limited to standard ballistic ammo or can they make the charge packs for energy weapons?"

"Our researchers incorporated into our Ammo-Bot 9001 series automatons every known weapon system at the time before cryostasis. We can make energy packs, bullets, napalm and even explosives if need be. But we caution against the production of explosive materials."

"Yeah, last thing we need is him running around with a grenade launcher," Steve remarked. "Well I'm going back topside, checking in on some of my friends."

"Be back by dinner," his mother told him.

"You carrying a piece?" his dad asked. Steve showed him a fully automatic Glock G18 tucked in his belt It was one of his acquisitions from the gun store trip. "All right have fun." Lynn looked at him skeptically, she never bought into the whole gun thing that her husband and oldest son were into. "What? With the trouble we ran into the other week, there are bound to be crazies."

Later that night, the circle of friends gathered at the remains of the Madison Meadows park. "Where's Jamie?" Leslie asked.

"Still at my place," Greg answered. "She's still pretty upset about losing her family." Unfortunately for Jamie, her father had lived in neighboring DeKalb county, right outside CERN's selected preservation population. Her mother lived just over the border in Indiana while her older brother Albert was stationed in Japan, working on jets that came back from bombing runs against China.

"HEY YOU GUYS!" came a call. Striding toward them in the fading sunlight was another of their group, Heather Shedd. She was of average build with a freckled face and hair as orange as copper. "Quick question!" she stated once getting to the ring of her cohorts. "Why the hell is Connor running around in a tin can?"

"Because he's the juggernaught, bitch," Dan replied without missing a beat.

"The Brotherhood Knights that have been around town since we took our trip told him to exorcise with it on so he can move with it more fluidly," explained Erich. "Speaking of him." He pulled his phone out and called their large friend over. Immediately his heavy footfalls and glowing bits of his armor denoted he was with them. "Connor and I have been talking."

"Uh oh," remarked Brian.

"We've been thinking-"

"Oh that's even worse," said the bearded one again.

"Can I fucking talk here?" Erich gave Brian a dirty look.

"Proceed."

"Anyway! With the Brotherhood of Steel expanding all outward around the county, we were thinking. Namely, we are gonna need more materials and goods. Yes CERN did provide all our fuel, food and in some instance ammo as well as a communication hub."

Connor took over. "We were thinking, we're all young and after the other week, armed to the teeth. So Erich and I reached the decision that someone has to supply at least our immediate towns with such things as extra or industrial building materials, spare parts that the robots might not be able to make as well as connecting to DuPage to the rest of the country."

"And you think that someone should be us?" Jeff asked. He was another member of the group, albeit he wasn't present for the trip to the "toy store". He was just under a scant inch shorter than Jamie, very skinny and with a crop of unkempt bleach blonde hair. He was sporting a Heckler & Koch MP9 10mm submachine gun under the open jacket he had on.

"Aye," Connor replied.

"I put in orders with my ammo bots to have them mass produce bullets for all the weapons we took from GAT so we will be more than prepared. We just need to find enough all terrain vehicles to handle it all," Erich told them.

"How are we going to fuel them?" Greg asked. "Last I checked, before the world ended, gas was almost $3000 a gallon and the gas in the stations had to have gone bad."

"Well lets just say that a certain someone filled up several gas tanks and a barrel or two of regular AND diesel before we took the two century nap without paying," Erich said, looking away.

"You could have shared some man," Brian commented.

"I did. With Connor and you two when we went to GAT." They all rolled their eyes. "All right Greg, you're the expert on when the shit hit's the fan. The shit hit the fan and clogged up the motor. What are we expecting weather wise?"

"Well, since us and the Reds fucked the world over, not to mention the Euro trash and all the Arabs going at it with nukes…" he thought for a second, "the atmosphere is definitely screwed. Probably won't rain for maybe another half century at best, no snow for maybe three times that. Maybe just snow lightly. I will tell you this, this winter is going to COLD."

"All right then. This is where Con and I left off. We get who wants to tag along by spring and leave then. We spend the winter getting supplies ready and helping the Brotherhood to fortify our homes." Erich scratched his head. "Either tell the big buy or myself by the end of January if you're in or not."


End file.
